Rezan Zuğurlu was mayor of the Turkish district of

Lice Louse (: lice) is the common name for any member of the infraorder Phthiraptera, which contains nearly 5,000 species of wingless parasitic insects. Phthiraptera was previously recognized as an order, until a 2021 genetic study determined th ...

Diyarbakır Province Diyarbakır Province (; ; ) is a province and metropolitan municipality in southeastern Turkey. Its area is 15,101 km2, and its population is 1,804,880 (2022). The provincial capital is the city of Diyarbakır. The Kurdish majority province ...

. She is a member of the

Peace and Democracy Party The Peace and Democracy Party (, , BDP) was a Kurdish political party in Turkey existing from 2008 to 2014. Development BDP succeeded the Democratic Society Party (DTP) in 2008, following the closure of the latter party for its alleged conne ...

(BDP).

Personal life

Zuğurlu was born into a family of

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish language ** Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) **Central Kurdish (Sorani) **Southern Kurdish ** Laki Kurdish *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern ...

activists and grew up in southeastern Turkey during an armed uprising for political rights among the Kurdish people. She considers herself a

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

and hopes her position as mayor would help better the lives of women in the district. She stated that she gets a feeling of solidarity with Berivan Elif Kiliç, Mayor of the town of Kocakoy, who was married off at the age of 15 into an abusive household, as well as Gultan Kisanak, female mayor of Diyarbakir. She was a student of Radio and Television Broadcasting and attended night-school after her day's work.

Prosecution

At the age of 22, Zuğurlu was accused of having protested in solidarity with several Kurdish prisoners which resulted in her getting arrested and sentenced to a 4 years 2 months prison term, of which she spent 13 months in pretrial detention. The judges reasoned that her nose and mouth profile would match the one of a protester identified as the one who threw stones towards Turkish authorities. She was released due to an appeal and two years after being released from prison, in March 2014, she ran for public office, for the post of mayor.

Political career

At the age of 25, she became the youngest mayor in

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

, winning nearly 90% of the votes in the local elections in March 2014 and assumed office in April 2014, Zuğurlu was among several female mayor candidates fielded by the party at that time, which also included 27-year-old

Leyla İmret Leyla İmret (born 1987) is a Turkish politician of Kurdish origin. She grew up in Germany but returned to her home country in 2013 and was elected mayor of Cizre on 31 March 2014. She was dismissed from her position by the government on 11 Sept ...

, who was elected as in

Cizre Cizre () is a city in the Cizre District of Şırnak Province in Turkey. It is located on the river Tigris by the Syria–Turkey border and close to the Iraq–Turkey border. Cizre is in the historical region of Upper Mesopotamia and the cultura ...

, in

Şırnak Şırnak () is a city in Şırnak District and the capital of Şırnak Province in Turkey. The Ibrahim Khalil border crossing with Iraq is one of the main links of Turkey to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The city is mainly populated by Kurds o ...

province. In February 2017 she was dismissed as mayor and a trustee was appointed instead. On 17 August 2017, she was arrested due to the anterior sentence that came into effect. In September she was transferred from Diyarbakır E Type Prison to the

Van A van is a type of road vehicle used for transporting goods or people. There is some variation in the scope of the word across the different English-speaking countries. The smallest vans, microvans, are used for transporting either goods or ...

T Type Prison.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zugurlu, Rezan 1980s births Living people Democratic Regions Party politicians Women mayors of places in Turkey Mayors of places in Turkey 21st-century Turkish women politicians Kurdish politicians Year of birth missing (living people)